


The Universe is Wrong

by AU_Queen



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, I may have made it worse, I tried to make it better, M/M, Mild Angst, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Symbols, a touch of arkos, being angry/annoyed at the universe, eventual archester, mentions of bullying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-20
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2018-12-31 21:50:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12141858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AU_Queen/pseuds/AU_Queen
Summary: Cardin knew the moment he heard the name and the symbol flashed up onto the screen with his picture that this kid standing on the stage, the leader of a team of his own, was the one the universe had declared he would spend his life with. The thought made him grimace and his gut did an angry turn. Who was the universe to tell him who he should marry? Who to love?He guesses he'd just have to prove the universe wrong.





	1. Chapter 1

Everyone was born with the symbol of their soulmate etched into the skin of their body, whether they believed in soulmates or not. Some found the person the universe or Fate or whoever it was that branded them soon after birth told them to be with, some did not. None of this really mattered to Cardin. He didn't really believe in soulmates, nor could he make himself fully care about them. He still cared enough to take precautions though. The only thing he owned with his symbol on it was a piece of jewelry the size of a penny that hung on a chain around his neck, that way if his soulmate ever met him they wouldn't know. It would be easier for them to just not know then for him to try to explain it to them that he didn't actually believe in all that soulmate crap. He also wore gloves that went slightly past his wrists, covering the twin arcs that rested right on his pulse point. Sometimes when he thought about the placement, he couldn't help but have to hold in a laugh. The universe basically made it so he literally has to wear his heart on his sleeve. And he tried his hardest to make sure people knew he didn't have a heart.

Despite everything, when he did first see his soulmate he couldn't help the almost painful thump of his heart in his chest, the drop of his stomach at blue eyes, or the throb where the symbol was.

Cardin knew the moment he heard the name and the symbol flashed up onto the screen with his picture that this kid standing on the stage, the leader of a team of his own, was the one the universe had declared he would spend his life with. The thought made him grimace and his gut did an angry turn. Who was the universe to tell him who he should marry? Who to _love_?

He guesses he'd just have to prove the universe wrong.

~

It was harder than he would have thought. Try as he might to get the kid to hate him, to snap at him, punch him, whatever it took to prove that the universe was wrong, that he didn't have a soulmate, he couldn't get him to. The kid was just too nice, too much of a push over. And it annoyed Cardin to no end. He was holding a secret, blackmail, over his head for crying out loud! Yet unlike everyone else he had ever bullied in his quest to lose his heart, the kid would not budge.

By now most kids would have realized he's only a minor threat and either took care of it themselves or gotten someone else to take care of it for them. Like that Velvet girl who got her friends to stop him from bulling her. But not this kid. He just wouldn't accept help. And Cardin knew it was offered. He didn't miss the way the one girl at his table had happily stood up, declaring that they would break his legs for him. Instead of taking the offer the kid just said that it was fine. (Okay, he will admit he was happy at that. Cardin rather likes being able to use his legs, thank you very much.)

Probably the worst part of it was, the more he spent time around the kid the more he felt like he was falling. He could feel the warmth in his chest when ever that blonde mop was in his sights. And he knew he was getting softer. Tugging on Velvet's ears slightly less painfully before he was stopped all together by her friends. Being less hard on Russel when he failed his third test that month. Placing a blanket on his team members when they fell asleep studying before continuing on with his own study session. His heart was coming back, and he honestly wasn't sure how to feel about it.

~  
  
The kid had finally snapped at him when he tried to force him to hurt that Pyrrha chick. He had thrown the jar of sap at him, the glass shattering and coating his bare chest plate with the sticky substance, while also attracting a nearby Ursa. His team members immediately ran for it and the Ursa had slapped him to the ground. When he drew his mace it was easily slapped away as well, and in that moment he decided to just accept his fate. Why not? He had already accepted that the universe had given him a good soulmate, even if it could now never happen, so he might as well just accept the universe's chosen death for him as well. It only seemed right since he had tried running from the universe for so long. So he clenched his eyes shut and just waited.

That's why he was surprised when instead of a heavy blow that surely would've been the end of him, he heard the sound of a paw meeting strong wood. When he blinked his eyes open all he could process was a slender body with a shock of blonde hair standing in front of him, shield raised to block the fatal blow. He gulped, able to do nothing more than sit there and watch as the kid fought the Ursa. Keeping him safe. When it was all over and the Ursa's head hit the ground, Jaune turned back to him and walked over. A hand was held out to Cardin and he took it, gratefully being pulled to his feet.

"Holy crap, Jaune," Cardin said, not able to keep the impressed tone out of his voice nor a small smile off his face.

"Don't ever mess with my team, my friends, again," Jaune said, staring into his eyes for something, before pushing him away with final words, "Got it?"

Cardin never thought he would ever be able to feel what he assumed to be his heart constrict and crumble, right inside his chest. But that's what he got for allowing himself to become attached. Allowing himself to start forming the heart he had lost, all thanks to a certain boy with dark blue eyes and striking blonde hair. All thanks to Jaune Arc.


	2. Chapter 2

It had been weeks since Jaune had confronted Cardin. Since then, he had no problems with the bully and was spending more time with his team, even getting extra lessons from Pyrrha. All seemed fairly good. But something in Jaune felt weird. He wasn't sure what it was, but he knew that it was in the quiet moments when he was alone and his eyes wandered to his scroll, expecting Cardin to call. The moments when he knew the eyes he felt on his back were the other boy's, or he caught himself staring absently at Cardin in turn. When he was just waiting for Cardin to appear behind him.

Those were the moments he knew something was off. Because out of everyone to think about in quiet moments when he's alone, it shouldn't be him. It shouldn't be Cardin.

There were plenty of days in those weeks where he felt like he would snap. The way Cardin was avoiding him like he was poisonous or would hurt him was driving him crazy. He wished he knew why.

Eventually he did snap, though he wasn't sure whether the reasoning for it was Cardin or himself. The whole class Jaune could feel Cardin's eyes on his back, but every time he looked back at him, Cardin was looking elsewhere. Jaune had glared in his direction once or twice then, wishing he could look into his mind and figure out what was wrong. When class ended and everyone was leaving, Jaune hung back in the hallway. He knew that Cardin was usually the last to leave from his days with the other boy, and he hoped that would ring true today.

He was relieved when after a minute or two, Cardin stepped out the door. Alone. Before Cardin could react, Jaune had his hand wrapped around his wrist and was dragging him down the hallway, toward the roof. When they got there, Jaune pushed the other boy away from him and slammed the door behind them. Cardin stumbled for a moment before regaining his balance and staring at Jaune with an expression Jaune could only call apprehensive curiosity.

"What is wrong with you?" Jaune glared at Cardin, his voice almost a bark.

"I-" Cardin just stared at him, his mouth slightly agape in surprise.

"You're staring at me constantly, yet avoiding me at every turn!" Jaune said and Cardin opened his mouth, but Jaune cut him off before he could say anything, "Don't even try to deny it. I've  _ seen _ you do it."

"I'm sorry," Cardin said, his eyes moving from the floor to Jaune's eyes and back.

"You- you're  _ what _ ? " Jaune asked in surprise, his eyebrows knitted low.

"I'm sorry," Cardin said and his eyes returned to meet Jaune's, this time staying there," For everything. I had time to think, and I shouldn't have done the things I did."

"I hope you know I don't forgive you," Jaune said, and his voice dropped close to a whisper, "And I never will."

"I don't expect you to," Cardin tells him honestly, hand moving to his neck to remove his necklace from his shirt as his feet shuffled awkwardly. He hated to stand still, doing nothing, for too long so he began to play with the pendant on the chain without even realizing it.

But Jaune noticed.

"What are you doing?" Jaune asked, gesturing to the necklace being twirled between Cardin's fingers. He'd seen him do it before, but this time it caught his eye for some reason. Maybe it was because of his annoyance and the quiet of the afternoon.

Cardin blinked once before his fingers stopped. He quickly went to place it back under his shirt, close to his heart and safe from others. "It's nothing."

"Yes it is, I've seen you mess with it before. What is it?" Jaune's curiosity got the better of him, and his annoyance, and he walked over to the other boy. Without much thought he reached for the chain around Cardin's neck and removed the pendant from behind his shirt. Not paying any attention to Cardin's noise of protest and easily avoiding the hand that almost half heartedly tried to stop him. He turned the pendant over in his hand, bringing it closer to his face so he could see it better. It had a black background with a dusty gold coloured bird on it, positioned so it looked like it was flying upwards. The image made him pause, and he could feel his soul mark burn on his left hip. His hands trembled as he dropped the pendant, hand instinctively resting over his own mark. "What?"

Not being able to say anything, Cardin simply looked down. He put his necklace back under his shirt, took a deep breath and clenched his eyes shut, waiting for Jaune to say something. Anything. When he felt the hand touch his wrist, he didn't do anything to stop Jaune from removing his gloves and revealing his own mark. The air around him seemed to get thinner as everything around them slowed and stopped for what felt like several minutes.

"No," Jaune's voice quaked and Cardin knew he could hear a touch of anger in his voice, "No! The universe is wrong."

"I know," Cardin replied and opened his eyes so he could meet Jaune's, not letting himself turn away like he wanted to as he felt a crack form in the heart that shouldn't have been there.

The two boys stood there quietly for some time, just staring at each other before Jaune turned and left the way he came. Leaving Cardin standing there staring after his back in the warm afternoon sun.

 

~

Jaune walked slowly as he traversed the hallway, mind still on that rooftop. His hand had stayed on his hip, fingers digging into his jeans and pressing roughly at the skin there. He couldn't believe that what he'd seen had been correct, that the universe would put him with him, but he couldn't deny what his eyes had seen. His soul mark matched the symbol on Cardin's necklace, and that was his own symbol he had seen like a tattoo over Cardin's pulse point.

All these years he had waited patiently to meet his soulmate, only to find that it was the boy who had bullied him for months. And he had no clue what to do with this information.

~

"Ren, I don't know what to do," Jaune sat on Ren's bed with his legs drawn up close to his chest and his face in his hands. Ren was beside him, hands awkwardly folded at his lap as Nora watched them in the corner of her eye, her headphones on but silent.

"What is it?" Ren asked.

"I-" Jaune sighs, "I think I might've found my soulmate. But it's a person I really don't think I could... I'm not sure if I can like them. What if the universe is wrong?" He looked at Ren with a sad frown, almost on the verge of tears.

~

“Dove, I don’t know what to do,” Cardin sat cross legged on Dove’s bed, staring blankly at the wall. Dove was beside him with a hand resting on his back. Russel and Sky watched silently from Russel’s bed.

“What happened?” Dove asked.

“He found out,” Cardin took a breath, swallowed against the lump in his throat, “Jaune knows about the universe’s mistake.”

“Cardin,” Dove frowned, “It’s not a mistake.”

“Yes it is,” Cardin breathed the words heavily, willing his heart to be quiet. Willing the heart pumping in his chest to go still. He was never supposed to have a heart.

“Having a heart is not a mistake,” Russel spoke from his spot on the other bed.

~

Ren and Nora share a look before Ren says anything.

“Jaune, soulmates are rarely mistakes. Especially when you find them,” Ren spoke softly.

“Just because Nora and you worked out doesn’t mean me and Cardin will,” Jaune waved his arm toward Nora with a frown.

“Cardin?!” Nora exclaimed from the bed.

Jaune’s hands flew to cover his mouth and he yelped “Headphones!” at Nora through them.

~

Cardin stayed quiet, eyes intent on watching the floor.

“It really isn’t,” Dove agreed, “Go to him. It’ll be okay.”

“What if it isn’t?” Cardin’s voice was quiet. Small.

“We’re your team, trust us,” Sky smiled and Cardin found himself meeting those eyes, mimicking that smile, and thinking, hoping, that maybe they were right.


	3. Chapter 3

It turned out Cardin couldn’t do it. He could never bring himself to approach Jaune and try to talk to him. Make it right. Do  _ anything _ .

Jaune didn’t approach him either. He figured that if Cardin wanted to fix it, Cardin would have to be the one to start. And Cardin never did. So he stayed away. Tried to ignore his mind, his soulmark, that told him to talk to the other boy.

Their feelings never went away, though. They only grew stronger. Simmered under the surface of their skin. Along with other feelings, at least for one of them.

 

~

 

There were Atlas soldiers everywhere. Carnage followed everyone of them. Screams littered the air. Rubble fell to the streets. And the Grimm were overwhelming.

In the midst of it all stood Cardin, mace out in front of him. Behind him stood a scared girl, her fluffy dog tail quivering in fear. In front of him was an Ursa, up on its hind legs and ready to strike. He had no clue how he had gotten to this point in his life. One where he was protecting a Faunus girl that can't be much older than ten while his team was who knows where. A part of him honestly wanted to blame Jaune. After all, it was his fault that  _ that  _ part of Cardin even started to beat again.

He killed the grimm quickly with a hit from his mace against it’s skull. Then he turned to the girl behind him. She immediately clung to him when he held his hand out. With a confused frown he picked her up. No one had ever looked to him for safety or comfort or, whatever this was. He ignored the happy warmth that bloomed in his chest at that thought as he ran her to somewhere safe.

When he put her down with someone else who was escaping, he couldn’t suppress the smile that overtook his face when she turned around and gave him a wave with her own giant smile.

As he ran back to join the fight, something caught his eye. It was a locker from the school. But no one other than him was in this area. His curiosity only grew when he heard the pounding noise coming from inside it.

“Pyrrha! Pyrrha, PLEASE!” the voice that yelleed from it made him pause before he started to run toward it. He could recognize that desperate voice anywhere.

A body fell out of the locker when he opened it, and he caught the person without a thought. Jaune looked up at him with tears in his clouded eyes, the colour of them now like the sky during a storm.

“Cardin?” the other boy sniffled the name quietly, but he didn’t pull away. Cardin was surprised when he felt Jaune try to get closer to him. He was even more surprised when Jaune’s face went into his breastplate as small sobs shook his body. With hesitation he placed his hand on his back.

“Jaune,” Cardin whispered and tried to unlatch the boy enough that he could look back into those sad eyes, “Jaune, what happened?”

“It’s Pyrrha,” Jaune told him. His lower lip started to quiver and Cardin began to rub circles in his back in an unconscious move to comfort him.

“I’m sure she’s fine, she’s an incredible warrior and can take care of herself,” Cardin spoke softly. Tried to reassure him. But he just shook his head frantically.

“No! She kissed me and then she,” Jaune cried, huffed the words into Cardin’s breastplate “She. I think she's dead.”

“No, no,” Cardin told him, “where is she?”

“On the roof,” Jaune hiccuped.

“Okay,” Cardin said and before he could stop himself he planted a kiss on the top of Jaune’s head. “I'll be back.” He unhooked Jaune’s fingers from around the metal of his breastplate. Left with only a single lingering glance behind him and a reassuring smile when he heard a soft, wavering “cardin”.

He never saw Jaune rip his scroll out of his pocket. Never saw him frantically dial Weiss or yell into the device for them to help Pyrrha, help Cardin, before he threw it down to break against the hard road. Saw him crash to his knees with his head in his hands and break down into tears.

~

Somehow he had found a way to the roof. Paused in surprise as Pyrrha moved the gears from Ozpin’s office to surround something. Stepped back from the blast as a fire burst from inside the gears to send them flying. Saw as a girl from one of the other schools manifested a bow and shot Pyrrha in the ankle.

“No,” he muttered the word when Pyrrha tried to get up and crashed back to her knees. The Invincible Girl, Pyrrha Nikos, should not have gone down like that. Every bone in his body knew it as fact. Yet he watched as the other girl rounded her. Lifted her head so she could look into her eyes.

“-ways you could never have imagined,” reached his ears, the girl’s voice cold, dark, and proud.

Pyrrha shook her hand away and looked up at her, “Do you believe in destiny?” She spoke the words with such a conviction, Cardin felt them like a weight on his shoulders. He couldn’t tell if that weight was lifted or not when he answered ‘yes’ before his brain even had the time to tell him the answer.

“Yes,” he heard the girl echo his answer with just as much conviction. Watched as she stepped away from Pyrrha to bring the bow back. Nocked it and drew it to her cheek.

Somehow he moved before she could.

The arrow was launched and it embedded itself clean through his neck as he moved in front of Pyrrha. He heard two screams. A surprised whisper of his name. He could only hope that Pyrrha would be able to kill Cinder as well.

His last thoughts were of Jaune. Jaune and Pyrrha.

Everyone knew the Invincible Girl didn't have a soulmate. It didn't matter if she died, there was no one for her to leave behind. But Cardin saw how she looked at Jaune. Saw them at the dance. And he knew Jaune deserved someone better.  _ Anyone _ , better than him. Maybe that was why his legs had him protect her.

So Jaune could have better.

Jaune deserved better and Cardin pleaded with everything inside of him to Pyrrha that she would be his better.

He died with that plea on his lips.

 

~

 

Pyrrha found Jaune after the fight was over. Some felt heavy in her chest as she approached him, Cardin’s necklace burning into the palm of her hand. She had already known that they were soulmates, but seeing Jaune’s tattoo echoed on the necklace around Cardin’s neck seemed to make it more real.

Jaune ran to her when she approached him. Wrapped her in a big hug and kissed her cheek. Then he looked behind her. Around her. Before his eyes searched her own. He whispered out Cardin’s named with a questioning tone. She couldn’t handle how broken it sounded and lowered her eyes. Held the necklace out to him. She explained that they had won. That Ruby had helped her, and thanks to Cardin’s sacrifice, they had actually won. It didn’t make any of it better.

He cried for a long time as she held him. And when he handed her back Cardin’s necklace before he turned around, she placed it around his neck without a word.

It took months for the school to be rebuilt, but they did it.

Somehow all his friends graduated and they gladly helped Ozpin and the maidens win the fight against Cinder. In the midst of all this, Jaune and Pyrrha did end up dating. After years of fighting the war was won. Jaune and Pyrrha were married. But Jaune never forgot, and Pyrrha never wanted him to. He would always remember the boy that the universe had given to him. The excellent choice it had made.

The necklace never moved from its place around his neck.

And sometimes, Jaune swore he could feel a happy warmth radiate from it.


End file.
